Recommended Posts

Every once in awhile the FCC will levy a fine against a USA RF spectrum abuser. And when they do find illegal use, it can take a couple years for the legal process to take its course. Here is the latest FCC issued fines involving some CB'ers:

Share on other sites

I can see where they might go after the guys running the 1.2 ghz setups, if they are close enough to a monitoring station to make a connection, but I don't really see them going after the 2.4 ghz users unless someone figures out how to pump several hundred watts out

Those instances you posted were out there just BEGGING for it

Our experience here in the sticks is that it takes a whole lotta complaints before the FCC will take the time to drive about 200 miles.

In the case of CB radios, if you're a shop, they will fine the bejesus out of you, but if you're just a user, they normally just confiscate your equipment and give you a very strict warning

Share on other sites

When I was a kid, we lived on the edge of a small town in missouri and that was at the height of the CB craze. There were two or three base stations that threw some massive amounts of RF into the atmosphere and that was in the days before cable tv, so when they got to ratchet jawing, NO ONE could watch ANYTHING

The FCC was called time and again, but we lived over a hundred miles north so not much was ever done. Sometimes ya gotta take matters into your own hands.......It's amazing what a little pin will do to a coax They finally got the idea and moved onto other annoying things.............

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

.... Sometimes ya gotta take matters into your own hands.......It's amazing what a little pin will do to a coax They finally got the idea and moved onto other annoying things.............

:D Yup, it does have effective results (not that I ever did that "back in the day")

Nowadays, your best bet is to get recordings "off the air" of the offending operator and maybe some video recordings of the interference on your TV. This would be the same for the Ham or FAA/DOD engineer that was experiencing interference from a Hong Kong video system (except the Gov't engineer would have much more sophisticated equip't). After that, simply send the evidence in to the FCC - for Hams and CB'ers, the FCC's "Enforcer" is a guy named Riley Hollingsworth (who is both a Ham and and a lawyer); I'm sure he has an equally ferocious counterpart that would handle governmental complaints.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

You dont think anyone is monitoring your transmission but believe me they are. I had a less than legal small amplifier on 7MHZ and I wasn't transmitting 10 seconds when a "brother" keyed up to tell me his analyzers were telling him my signal was not up to "hoyle"..ha,ha. and perhaps I should check that my equipment might have something wrong with it.

well well oh those days, I remember the day when I got courght in the act of transmitting on VHF, on some bands outside amateurs, and ups did not own the frequency and did not have a ham licence, uha that was expensive but funny.

that was 15 years ago !

Now I got the class A ham licence and can do tons of much more funny experiments, legally.

By the way: I know people without licence to the 2.4Ghz, that transmit 18Watt with large stacked antenna from their model planes !! yes this is no joke !

Some hams in Florida got an earful when they heard what turned out to be teenagers planning various robberies over the Jupiter Farms 444.400 MHz CERT repeater. On September 8, Al Moreschi, AG4BV, of Jupiter, and John Levey, KI4HTL, a retired police officer, of Palm Beach Gardens, overheard, according to Moreschi, "what sounded like men talking about committing a burglary and we were monitoring them on one of the local ham repeaters." Moreschi said he and his fellow hams notified local law enforcement agencies of the break-in, but the alleged thieves "didn't describe the house well enough to get the exact address."

The amateurs kept listening for the vandals to show up again on the repeater. On September 21, they were in luck. This time the hams were ready and had set up recording devices to capture the break-in as it transpired. Moreschi said he and his fellow hams recognized the voices and started recording; they also called the police.

The last transmission heard over the air by the suspects was, "Code Red, Code Red, Code Red. There are cops everywhere, dude!" Three suspects were captured and arrested: one at the scene, one who was walking down a nearby road and one at a local grocery store.

An official with the local sheriff's office said that the suspects were charged with burglary for the two break-ins; the three are suspects in other local robberies, as well. The tapes made by the hams are in the custody of the sheriff.

Moreschi said that the suspects might also be facing charges from the Federal Communications Commission for operating without an amateur license. "We don't know how these kids got hold of the ham radios. Their transmissions came right over the CERT repeater, and that has a special tone and you have to have a special tone to key it up," Moreschi said.

With a wireless video ATV, the required station ID can be handled by a voice announcement, morse code, OSD, or simple paper labels created with crayon. It doesn't have to be fancy. I like the automated methods (OSD is one example) so that I don't have to remember to do it.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

The Amateur Radio Community in the past decade has become increasingly involved in tracking down unlicensed operation on frequencies assigned to the amateur radio service. There are probably in excess of 1,000 licensed operators who volunteer for unpaid duty as Oficial Observers (OO) in monitoring these frequencies, and document and make reports to the FCC as necessary when illegal operation and interferance on amateur radio frequencies is found.

cliffo found this out per his thread above.

Amateur radio would like more people to join in our habby. It's not hard anymore and morse code is no longer a requirement.